brittney cade

With the election just two days away, thereapos;s basically no time left for anything to happen. Unless Stephen Harper beats up an artist with a baby seal while in Quebec, no event will sway voters. What remains to be seen is how Canadians are going to decide to vote, and that might not solidify until tomorrow night at Thanksgiving dinner when talk turns to politics.

Hereapos;s what I can tell you. Right now, we are on track for another Conservative minority government. I suspect they are going to gain a couple seats, but overall this election is going to be a defeat for them, because when Harper called it (breaking the spirit, if not the rule of his apos;fixed electionapos; legislation) he was facing a number of weak parties, and he personally topped out the ratings of the party leaders. Now, his party is going to have to fight to earn any seats.

The Liberal party is also going to have to fight to hold itapos;s seats, but itapos;s come back from literally deathapos;s doorstep a few weeks ago. Stephanne Dion has proven himself to be capable under the right cirumstances, and appears to have finally hit his stride as leader. Still, their partyapos;s organization is poor, and theyapos;re facing the prospect of bleeding votes on all sides. The New Democrats are the likely beneficiary of those votes, having run probably the most gaffe-free campaign. The Bloc Quebecois, which was threatened with being badly beaten when this campaign began, is now resurgent and could pick up seats. And the Green party is struggling to hold onto itapos;s support in the last days and will be hard-pressed to win even a single seat.

The only real question now is whether voters will swing in the last day, and if they do, how many of them. If Stephen Harper looks like he might win a majority, or is looking particularily strong, voters might swing from the New Democrats to the Liberals, which was precisely what happened in the last election. This time, that doesnapos;t seem as likely, New Democrat support has been particularily solid, if not exactly rising. Of course, the New Democrats and the Liberals both have lost voters to the Greens, who are now facing the exact same dilemna, whether to swing back to the parties that are most likely to win. The fate of this election now stands in their hands. Itapos;s entirely possible, although unlikely, that enough voters could swing to the Liberals to swing them into a very weak minority government, but I donapos;t think that will happen.

With that said, I give you my predictions for seat totals. I will also give you how many seats the parties gain or lose. Keep in mind that several seats were empty prior to the electin call so that will not add up to 308, the number of seats in the house of commons.

Conservatives: 132 (+5)
Liberals: 90 (-5)
NDP: 34 (+4)
Bloc Quebecois: 51 (+3)
Green: 0 (-1)
Indepedent: 1 (0)

In other words, iapos;m not expecting a lot of change in this election. Province-by-province polling is showing the parties standing more or less close to where they were when the last election was called.

Now, here are a couple of things to watch out for, mostly as side interest.

Elizabeth May Vs. Peter MacKay
May, the leader of the Green Party, made the poor decision to face off against Peter MacKay, the former leader of the Progressive Conservative party and now the Minister of Defence. MacKay is a very popular cabinet minister, and his family has deep ties in his riding. Stacked against that is that party leaders tend to win their seats, and May was widely regarded as having had a good preformance at the leaderapos;s debate. Furthermore, the Liberal party agreed not to run a candidate in this riding. The question, then, is whether the Liberal voters, as well as New Democrat voters, will swing behind May. Even if this happens itapos;ll be immensely close, but a May victory here would be a huge upset and would mark the first elected Green MP.

Linda Duncan Vs. Rahim Jaffer
This is particularily interesting because itapos;s in Edmonton. Alberta is not known for voting for anyone other than Conservatives, but thereapos;s been a big attempt to get Liberal voters to swing behind the NDPapos;s Duncan, who lost last time by less than 5000 votes in a province where Conservatives tend to win by much bigger margins. This, too, is a long shot, but personally I think Duncan has a fair shot at this seat.

Justin Trudeau Vs. Vivian Barbot
Trudeau, son of the late Prime Minister, is a very popular person here in Canada. Heapos;s young and charismatic, and this is his first foray into politics. Liberals would love to see him lead their party someday. But thatapos;s in the future, and right now heapos;s fighting to take a seat from incumbent Bloc candidate Barbot. This riding was very close in the last election, and I expect Trudeauapos;s name to win it, but stranger things have happened.


Okay I must get ready for turkey. If I can think of any other races worth watching I will mention them.
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